


earth to sky, heart to heart

by gootarts



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe-Fantasy, Other, battler-typical incompetence, dragon!battler, pronoun crimes [frequent pronoun switches between scenes] committed, sayo-typical internalized transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/pseuds/gootarts
Summary: The dragon Sayo goes out to investigate is a lot chattier than expected.
Relationships: Ushiromiya Battler/Yasuda Sayo
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	earth to sky, heart to heart

The first time Sayo laid eyes upon him, she didn’t know what to expect.

(this was a lie; she had an idea of what to expect, formed and molded by stories as old as time. her mind had pictured some sort of monstrous serpent, jaws wide and teeth gleaming as they sunk into her flesh. the same monster who had extinguished the lives of those half-dozen townsfolk once the lights in the markets had dimmed down to embers)

Just hearing the reports was nothing compared to seeing the actual scenes; heads severed in a bloody mess, fingers clawing at some assailant that was now a mere reflection on glassy unmoving eyes. Or, that would be the case if they could find the heads. Until then, nobody except the killer could say with absolute certainty that they even still had eyes. The guards had said it much more succulently;  _ whoever did this was fucked up _ . Even with everything heating up, their bodies firing at full throttle, warm molasses moved only slightly slower than if it was cold. 

Even if she was just a servant, somebody not fit to spend time mulling such a thing over, something about the case kept drawing her back. Something about the way their bodies were fucked up beyond belief, or perhaps those stories of martyrs from times of old throwing their bodies away. Every time it touched upon her thoughts, all she saw was an image of her body, stripped of flesh, placed upon an altar. People would visit, and remark upon the dead, how they were in life, how it was cut short too soon, too fast. They wouldn’t know of the mangled body underneath the robes, only what was in front of their eyes. 

The dragon almost certainly was not the killer. It did not fit with any of the information in the cases. And yet, the sight of that great beast that always left the town late in the day, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, still stirred something in her. It was not so much the dragon as that same martyrdom that called to her like a siren's song, echoing in the night and leading her to the abandoned building in front of her. This was where the dragon lay; in this strange, Western-styled church, its windows covered in glinting glass. It held no services; even if it did, nobody would seek an old, out-of-the-way church serving a god they did not believe when so many temples were already within the city's reach. 

She kept repeating to herself that it was only curiosity driving her feet forwards, to see what a dragon was like in the flesh. The vials of poison tied underneath her dress, clinking together like a cascade of bells, said otherwise. They echoed her steps like the chime of a great clock,  echoing the passage of time, the moving of a soul from the living to the dead. The poison would have done the same—burn her flesh beyond all recognition the instant the vials were broken. 

Some small part of her hoped that what answered the door was a beast set on devouring her, killing her and slipping everything on her flesh, but to the chagrin of any death wish she had, the person who greeted her at the door was no monster. If anything, he was confused. Tall for a human, with bright red hair that scorched her eyes like the sun. “Hello?” His face looked out of place with the solid wooden doors of the abandoned church, like it should have been at a bar surrounded by women instead of at an old building that smelled of moss. His raised eyebrows made her want to shrink back, almost as if he knew what the smallest, darkest corner of her heart hoped for. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears as it dropped her out of her fantasies and into the real world.

The clinking of the vials froze her in place. This was a person with thoughts and feelings, not some figment of her imagination. Everything up to this point had been planned in her own head, yet the merest glance from him made her feel like her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. The idea that t _his trip was_ _inappropriate_ finally entered her mind as her throat struggled to find the words. “I was just seeing if anybody lived here.”

He tipped his head to the side, as if judging the sentiment behind her words, before opening the door a little wider; it was an offer to see inside, not an invitation to enter. The interior was massive, stone and stained glass twisting together to let in pure color instead of mere light. Sayo couldn’t quite be sure what shade the interior was originally supposed to be, for all the colors of the rainbow seemed to dance upon it. “Haha, it’s a bit decrepit. My family owns this place, but I’ve only been here about a year. I’ve got some fond childhood memories of using this as a fort.”

“It looks like a fun place to grow up.” Even if the vast expanse of the forest was at her back, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was cornered. 

“Yup! If you’re looking for something, I can try and search for it. Since I live here now, you can’t just walk in, and I’d guess that there were probably a couple people who used it in the meantime before I came back for it. My name’s Battler, by the way.” If not for the cocktail of poison and adrenaline and guilt underneath her clothes, Sayo would no doubt have thought of him as kind. 

“No, nothing like that. I just wanted to see if anybody was here.” If there wasn’t the danger of the vials bursting, Sayo would have turned tail into the night. Instead, she had to settle for a slow gait as she stepped away. “My name is Sayo.” Her brain couldn’t think of a good fake name, so her real name it was. Even through her nervousness, it felt like a relatively safe bet; the man’s heart seemed much warmer than hers; she had come with the specter of death, and yet he still welcomed her warmly. 

“Sayo? Wait, do you want me to escort you back, Sayo? Even if most of the way back is through the forest, the streets have been dangerous lately.” The streets were why she was here; and yet, she couldn’t possibly imagine this man in the midst of them, blood on his hands. Still, some part of her kept whispering to be cautious. 

“Wouldn’t you worry about going back on your own?” She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll be fine going back.”

“I mean, if you’re sure…” If he was tall previously, he was  _ towering _ as he straightened his back to his full height. If she had the muscle she saw underneath his clothes in addition to having that extra head of height, she wouldn’t be constantly looking over her shoulder. “Just be careful, okay?”

It was only when he turned to close the doors that she placed a name to the face, or even noticed the red tail barely peeking out from the hem of his kosode and the horns barely visible above the spiked mass of his hair. He was one of the market booksellers. 

As the noise of the forest filled the air in his absence, some strange, rhythmic thumping sound kept resonating through her ears, weaving between the calls of the insects and birds. It was the beating of her heart. 

* * *

Kanon was able to confirm the redhead’s identity the next time he passed through to buy groceries for work. Even with those added layers of fabric twirling behind his steps, or that hat hiding the bulk of his hair, Battler’s build was unmistakable. He’d only meant to pause by the booth, but the redhead had leaned in close after only a second. 

“Oh, you again? Want to take a look through my stuff? I have a bit more back at home, since you know the way there.” Kanon froze. That was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the same dragon he had met last time. Even while dressed as a man, with the posture to match, Battler had seen through it in an instant.

“…Hello.” Was the best greeting he could manage as his mind blanked for words. It had to be the fault of the blazing sun, not the warm face that seemed to be burning a hole in his mind whenever their eyes met. He’d bought books from Battler in the past, but never ended up being a regular customer. “How did you…?”

For once, Battler was the quiet one. Maybe he realized he said too much, so Kanon continued. “Is this, perchance, related to…?”

He nodded so hard that Kanon was afraid his hat would fall off before giving the underside of his nose a sheepish wipe. “It’s not a big deal, but I don’t go screaming it from the rooftops, hihihi. Thanks to that, it’s hard to fool my nose. It’s sorta embarrassing, but it works pret~ty well, since I’m not great at faces.”

The two of them stood for a couple baking moments in the sun, as Kanon’s brain started to whirr. If he could smell that well, it was possible he smelled the poison on him as well the last time. It was a stupid decision, looking back on it, the kind that made him pull the covers over himself in shame whenever it crossed his mind as he tried to sleep. He instinctively took a step back as the coins in his purse jingled with the movement. 

“If you were trying to order last time, sorry if that was awkward. Not many people go out of the way to buy things from me at my house when the market is here.”

“Yes.” He lied through his teeth as he forked over a couple of coins. The heat of the sun combined with the heat under his skin was baking him alive, enough so that the shitty lie passed through him without a second thought. There wasn’t any reason to avoid a bookseller in the first place; he liked to read. Under any other circumstance, the man beckoning him into the stall to choose whatever he liked would be a weighty gift, not a weight upon his conscience. 

“Feel free to ask for recommendations, by the way. I copied these all myself, which means I’ve read them, too!” 

“These…all?“ as he asked, Battler looked down and scratched the back of his head so hard that Kanon would be surprised if it didn’t draw blood. “I see.”

The gentle, fierce heat of his gaze was enough to make him pick up the first book that looked vaguely interesting instead of dawdling among the covers. 

* * *

Without meaning to, his feet somehow ended up in front of Battler’s stall again and again. until it had almost become routine. Battler would call out a greeting, and, eventually, Sayo would return it. In the early hours of morning, it had slowly become a small comfort in the empty streets; eventually, his added height and powerful frame were more familiar than nerve-wracking, and he began to give back Battler’s greetings as quickly as he received them.

One earlier-than-normal morning he seemed to have vanished, until he caught a glimpse of fiery red hair in the back of the stall, carving up a wooden block.“G’morning! You’re here early.”

“Groceries. I woke up earlier than usual, that’s all.” Even if Battler couldn’t see his head from his current vantage point, Kanon still nodded. 

He didn’t expect Battler to move, much less to the front of the stall when he greeted him. His eyes were as wide as saucers, and if he looked far enough into them, he could see the reflection of a small burning ember. “If you’ve got the time, will you be passing by the stand that sells meat buns? They’re a guilty pleasure, but I can’t really leave this stall, and they don’t set up until after I get here, ihihi. If it’s not too much trouble, I can pay you for one. ”

“Huh?” Battler pressed a coin into his hand far too quickly for him to protest. Just the feeling of that warm, hot weight in his palm made the entire right side of his body tense up, unable to do anything but gulp down a breath and stutter out a “sure.”

“Thanks!” His smile glinted in the morning light as Kanon’s legs, without thinking, slowly headed off towards the tempting scent of meat. Even if he’d only begrudgingly accepted the offer, an IOU from a dragon wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. At the very least, he was friendly, even if his presence could be overwhelming at first glance. It was only when he was at the front of the line that he realized that maybe buying groceries first would have been the better choice so that Battler could have eaten it hot, and that the scent of the bun didn’t tempt him as he bought food for the day. The meat bun vendor didn’t say anything, but he still felt the coin’s warmth against the palm of his hand when he handed it over. 

Battler was casually lying in wait for him the same way a cat would pretend that they meant to be in the same room as you all day. As Kanon dropped off the spare change (the man had overpaid for this service, and by a quite drastic amount), Battler tipped his head to the side and gave his best awkward grin. 

“Ah, my bad. I gave you extra so that you could also get one. Erm, here!” With a single motion, he tore it in half, spilling some of the meat inside on the countertop below. 

“…Thanks.” He paused before reaching over, not sure if the offer was serious or not. It wasn’t often that he got any gifts like that, much less from a complete stranger. Work compensated him fairly with both money and leftovers, but even for a master chef, the tastiest sort of food was the type somebody else made. Even as he was just biting into it, Battler had already finished his half off and was wiping down the spilled meat with his fingers. Which he then promptly put in his mouth. Even as he was licking off the scraps, he closed his eyes, savoring the taste like it was his last meal. Had Kanon looked closer, he doubtlessly would have seen a tear stream down his face as he swallowed. 

“If you’ll stop by tomorrow, I can give you extra again, so we can eat together,” he said, and for a brief moment, Kanon was sure he was lying. Why would somebody like Battler invite him to eat together? Even if they had met a couple times, they barely knew each other.

To Kanon, breakfast was food that you stuffed into your mouth so that you were not hungry. Even though he made his living as a chef, it was something he rarely shared with another person. And yet, the man’s bright, cheery smile and the warmth of the bread in his hands combined into some sort of feeling that forced open his mouth to say a simple, quiet “I’ll be sure to do that.”

* * *

Rain or shine, people still needed to work to pay rent, herself included. 

Even if she hated the way the rain soaked into her wig, her employers were constantly nagging that she buy everything fresh, even if their taste buds were so deformed that they couldn’t taste the difference between a loaf of bread baked today and one baked a week ago. No, the reason they insisted on that sort of wastefulness was purely status. Leftovers were not the food of the upper-class, after all. Neither was getting pounded with heavy, cold raindrops a torment they indulged in; that was reserved solely for the servants. Even if every person with half a brain had left, there were always those handful of damned souls who were doomed to being soaked to down to their very bones. 

Even if she hadn’t bought any meat buns because of the rain, walking the route back that stopped by Battler’s stall was less a conscious decision and more a matter of habit. She gave a glance into the stall, expecting it to be barren, but it was empty only of books, not of Battler.

“Ah, Sayo! Morning!” As he popped his head over the booth’s table, the rain started peppering his hair with droplets. 

She gave a confused glance to the barren stall. “Why are you here?”

“Normally I don’t head over when it’s raining, but since you like to visit me, I figured you might wonder where I was.”

“So you came over just to see me?” Sayo raised an eyebrow.

“Well, when you put it like that, it’s a bit embarrassing.” He laughs, but it rang hollow as he glanced towards the floor. “I just wanted to pay you back if you already bought a meat bun for me.”

…He realized that he could’ve just reimbursed her the next day, right? “I didn’t get one, since I thought you wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh.” Everything about the look she was given was awkward. “Well, in that case, have a good day!”

It was hard to have a good day when you were surrounded by obnoxious nobles, but she still smiled as she waved goodbye. 

* * *

At first, she thought the shadow flitting through the air and away from the direction of the church was Battler, for no other creature flying through the air had quite the same shape as a dragon.

Even though she had only glimpsed his true form a handful of times, it was enough to be able to distinguish Battler from a distance; if you took the time to study it, the gait of his flight was unique. It was much like how one of the girls in the house she worked for could tell if the insect buzzing outside was a yellow jacket or a paper wasp by the gait of its flight; only the wasps would hold their hind legs out as they flew, as if worried about if they would crash back down to earth again. 

Something was off. Maybe it was the rhythm of the wingbeats, or an intricacy of the silhouette, but the shape floating through the air was not him. It didn’t dawdle in the air like Battler did, nor did it coast or change direction; this dragon had a place it wanted to go, and by rain or by shine, it was going to get there. 

Thinking on it, that dragon had probably met Battler, right? He had mentioned family owning the castle; that meant there were more. Maybe they were still there. The part of her brain that worked as a rich family’s chef was begging to stop, to not invite herself over, but curiosity was a powerful thing.

Battler waved hello to her as she caught her breath outside the church doors. “Ihihihi, wasn’t expecting you today! You just missed Ange.”

“Ange?” She looked over her shoulder, in the general direction the dragon had departed to.

“Yeah, she’s my sister. We don’t get to see each other often, but next time she comes over you should stop by. If that wasn’t why you’re here in the first place.” The sly smile on his face made her immediately dart her gaze to somewhere else that definitely wasn’t his eyes. Unfortunately, that place she eyes landed on was his hand beckoning her inside.

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“My family’s a pretty big one. We tend to keep to ourselves.” He gave a sigh. “All they ever do is fight whenever they’re near each other, so that’s probably for the best.” 

“As in?” She raised a hand curled into a claw, poised to strike. 

“It’s more like they’re yelling all the time whenever they’re in the same room. The cousins are fine, but anybody more than a decade older than me is on my to-kill list.”

“Sounds about right. Family can be like that.” She wasn’t one to talk about that topic, but she’d overheard enough sibling bickering from her employer that she didn’t doubt it. 

“Yup. Ange found some sort of spirit or something, which is nice. Guess I’m falling behind her in the romance department.”

“I’m surprised somebody like you don’t have a partner already.” Sayo grew up listening to those grand stories of dragons and princesses and swordsmen, intertwined so tightly in the cloth of the story that if one were to be cut out, the entire fabric would unravel. 

“A partner? You mean like a wife?” His face didn’t show any emotion, but his tail betrayed him as it started beating upon the shelf next to her, thumping and thumping over and over.“I guess a wife would be really cool. I’d love to have somebody rub my a~ching back after hunching over a press all day.”

He stretched for emphasis, his tail arching as he rolled his shoulders before continuing his train of thought. “I just…can’t really do that.”

“What do you mean?” Of the two people in this room, there was only one whose battered, scarred body wasn’t fit to love another human’s. 

“Well, erm, you see.” Battler’s hands and eyes suddenly found themselves quite interested in a partially carved wooden block on the shelf, one that he’d barely given a glance at earlier. “Dragon biology is weird when it comes to having kids with humans.”

Sayo’s mind did the math; Battler kept several aspects of his true form even when he had the body of a human. Given the sheer size of his true form, and if the scale of certain extremities were also carried over to his human one… “I see.”

In hindsight, maybe she should’ve looked away first, because just thinking about the topic made her eyes drift downwards. Her brain processed that maybe she should have covered her face at the exact moment Battler’s hands flew to cover his own body, but something about the scene only entranced her more. 

“Nooooo, it’s not like that! Not like that at all!” His tail, too, was trying to cover himself up, though he could only lift it far enough off the ground that it just curled around his feet. “Pervert! Pervert, pervert, pervert! If you keep looking at me like that nobody is going to want to marry me anywaaaaays!”

It was hard not to chuckle at the scene; the posture of this mighty beast, the teasing tone in his voice, and the red covering every bit of his face. “Then what is it? Do you lay eggs? I’m sure there’s some human into that.”

She sort of did deserve his tail hitting her ankles with a sharp  _ thwap _ . “Get your head out of the gutter! Out! Out! Dragons get really hot in the womb, that’s all!”

“The….womb?”

“See! I told you it wasn’t dirty! Dragons are ovoviviparous, so the eggs develop inside the womb before they’re forced out, and a human isn’t physically able to handle it.” 

That answered some of the weirder questions, at least. “So it’s fine if a dragon births kids with their own body, but not when a human does it.”

“Yeah. When a dragon and human have a kid, it’ll be one or the other. So if I had a wife and she got pregnant, it would be a gamble if it was a dragon or human.” His voice lowered from the joking tone of a moment later as he looked her in the eyes. They were like the lonely pools of water in the forest, reflecting only silence. “If she died from that, I’d never be able to live with myself.”

“I see.” 

He gave a soft, profound sigh as he started turning a wooden block over in his hands until he finally found the words. “Dragons have been dying off for centuries now, to the point where I’ve never met one who wasn’t my family. If I did have kids, I’d probably have to go to pretty nutty lengths to do that. I don’t think that would be fair to those kids, because they’d grow up hearing ‘oh, dad did a lot of really extreme stuff to have you’ and would probably feel pressured to do something just as extreme to continue the lineage.” 

It was a rare reserved monologue from him; she felt bad that the only reply she was able to give was a confused “Huh?”

“You know all those stories of dragons going and kidnapping women to make them brides?” His lip curled around his teeth, sharp with anger. “My bastard of a granddad did that.”

She didn’t know the women, but she could feel something pulling down the corners of her lips at the mere thought. Even for somebody who had begged the heavens for a mother’s womb, the idea of having it tainted like that with a gamble that would either bind you in blood to your attacker or poison you like that was repulsive.

“He’s been dead for a while now. Good riddance.” He let out a long, hot sigh, one that she could have sworn had sparks mixed in with the air. 

The silence stagnated between them for a moment between Sayo weighing the potential responses to that and Battler's silence. His words felt like they had been bottled up and released all at once in a mighty explosion. His fingers had clawed deep into his thigh as a snarl was frozen on his face.  **Sayo had never seen that red-hot anger knotting his face up before. His eyes blazed like a mighty sun as his skin turned from pale to deep red. Despite the rage beneath his skin, his size, everything about him in this moment, it was not anger towards her. Even if he was angry, the side he was showing was vulnerability** **, no different as if he had exposed his neck to her touch. She had done nothing to deserve that, and yet he spilled his soul anyways, speaking from the deepest recesses of his heart with almost zero hesitation.** Even if it was by complete accident that he realized that Kanon and Sayo were the same, the fact that he was still so comfortable around them to say this, to spill the innermost depths of his heart, was touching.

“Sorry if that caught you off guard. It’s a bit of a complicated topic for me.” The snarl faded from his face, but the kind, angry embers in his eyes still remained. 

“No, I understand.” She clutched at her chest, at the fabric covering her mangled body. “I know your feelings.”

“Huh?” He tilted his head as eyes pleaded with her for something that she couldn't quite pinpoint.

“You want to give somebody who loves you something very specific. But you can’t, because of your body. So you go into relationships automatically assuming that even if you both express interest, they won’t like you back.” The words jabbed into her heart a little as she spoke them. As he took them in, he looked like he was about to open his mouth, but then closed it, then opened it again, almost as if the man in front of her had been replaced by a fish before he finally spoke. 

“Yeah. It’s just like that. If I married a woman, she’d probably want things from my body that I can’t give her. Not because I can’t, but because we’d both end up hurt.” Even as he tried his best to put on a goofy smile, his eyes kept gravitating towards the floor before he told her to come again soon.

* * *

The newsboy came calling about another murder in the morning. Even if they had almost become mundane by now, it was all that filled his thoughts as he wandered. And then his thoughts wandered, too—to that dragon who wanted a bride, and to himself, and his body. 

No matter how much Kanon begged and pleaded to the gods, it would not change the fact his body couldn’t create children. It couldn’t love like a normal human’s body could; that was what he had told himself for  _ years _ . And yet here was a dragon, a king of the beasts, a ruler of the sky, saying that sort of body that he had wanted for over a decade wasn’t something he would be comfortable loving. If his could happen, was it possible that somebody like himself could grasp that kind of love reserved for those whose bodies were not mangled beyond repair like hers?

He wondered why he was even giving that thought. He was a  _ dragon, _ after all. He didn’t sneer at his own body through broken windows or curse its existence for decades of his life. 

* * *

Passing by Battler’s stall in the morning had slowly become less of a formality and more of a habit; a stop that was not for business, but for pleasure, so much so that she would wake up earlier just to spend more time. Instead of running to the vendors in the dead of morning, she would buy two meat buns and share them as the sun rose. Even though she used the highest quality ingredients, roasted long and warm over the fire, their taste could never compare to those cheap buns shared in the light of the morning. 

This morning, however, her face was dark. “There was another death. You should be careful coming here early.”

“I’m a dragon. I’ll be fiiiiine! You should be the one being careful.” He spoke through a mouthful of bread, spitting a little of it out as he spoke. There wasn’t any doubt that he would lick it off his fingers the second he swallowed.

“I’m not particularly worried. I’m not around when the killer normally strikes, and I don’t do anything that interferes with the pattern.” They say that the best way to overcome a fear is to learn about it; and for that purpose, she did. It was not death that initially scared her, but the body it left behind. Once you were dead, you were no longer in control of that body. Anybody could gaze upon that sack of meat that used to be you; the world, and all its ugliness, would know exactly what you were. 

But now, death meant something extra; there would be no more of these shared breakfasts. That time spent pondering over the death reports was not to keep herself safe from the prying eyes of the world, but because she did not want to live in a world without this time spent with Battler.

“Hm? Pattern?” Battler’s face was confused.

“The deaths usually occur in a certain part of the city, and during the night. The heads being removed is also a notable trend—none of the victims knew each other, so it’s likely random.” She began to rattle on as Battler was silent save for an occasional node. No matter how deranged they were, a killer was still fundamentally a person. One did not come out of the womb with a knife in their hand; it was a decision, shaped not by any innate nature but by a kaleidoscope of experiences. Likewise, that choice of who deserved to live and who deserved to die was no more than an extension of that experience. This culprit was smart, but cowardly. They only reaped what they could take in the dead of night, not some unlucky soul wandering back home as the sun set.

Battler thoughtfully put a hand on his chin. “You know a lot about this. How do I know you aren’t the killer?”

Before her brain could stop her, she had leaned in until their noses were almost touching. “There's no way for you to know that. Until I kill you, at least.” 

Add a light puff of breath on his ear for good measure, and presto, his face had taken the color of a ripe tomato. As she admired her handiwork, she noticed that the reddest parts of his face weren’t skin, but scales. As she leaned back and the color began to fade from his face, the scales followed suit. “Are you okay?”

Tentatively, Battler raised a hand to his face and froze. In an instant, he’d darted his body so that the crowd was at his back, so that only Sayo could see his face. A couple moments of deep breathing later, and he met her eyes once more. “Are they gone now?”

“They are now.“

He breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thanks. That sort of thing is sorta an involuntary reaction.”

“Interesting.” As she leaned in closer to see where the scales vanished to, a small cluster appeared again. As he pushed her face away, they disappeared once more. “I thought you could control your transformation.”

“It takes practice to do at will, since it’s tied to emotion.” He slowly ran his fingers under his eyes and across the nape of his neck to verify that they had, in fact, vanished.

“It’s an interesting trick. Are they tied to any emotion you feel?”

“Only a couple. Anger, fear, a couple others, that sort of thing.” So that must have been fear that triggered it, then. Such a concept was strange for her; she didn’t view her body as scary or intimating, only broken. Her mind reeled to as he was speaking of his grandfather, as his skin turned crimson. Part of that had been anger, but perhaps part of that had been those tiny scales rippling across his body.

“You hide it?” She asked as she wiped her hands down and stood up. The day was beginning, and if she stayed for too long, she would be late.

“I mean, a little. It’s not the end of the world if somebody finds out, I’m just cautious.” He shot her a pointed look. “You should be, too, everything going on!”

“I suppose. See you tomorrow,” she said as she waved goodbye.

“Seeya!”

* * *

Another day, another death. The early morning line for Kanon's meat buns and groceries was shorter than he'd ever seen it. When he walked up to Battler’s bookstand with a bun, the redhead only nibbled on its edge as their whispers drifted into the empty streets. 

“Hey, Kanon, I was wondering—where do you live?”

“One of the flats nearby.” He gestured in the general direction, maybe a couple streets over. For all intents and purposes, it was a thankfully short commute.

“You’re a servant for a rich family, though! They’re ripping you off if they can pay and won’t let you freeload off their house.” He gave an affirming nod to himself, but Kanon only shrugged.

“They’re shitty, but they pay well enough. Not having to pay rent would be nice, though.” For a family of entrepreneurs, they were shockingly cheap in almost every category but food. 

Battler was silent for a couple moments as his gaze darted between the bun in his hands and his face, silent. “Do you want to stay at my place for a bit, until everything here calms down? I can fly you in for the morning.”

His forehead was creased in worry as he spoke, but he was more focused on the words leaving his mouth.  _ Fly _ . He repeated that word slowly, with trembling breath. 

“Yeah. You’re small, so it would be easy for me to carry you. Plus, the church is supposed to fit a full-sized dragon, so it can fit an extra human, no problem.” He gave a shy smile to the empty market walls as he scratched at the hair on the back of his neck, his posture trying its hardest to conceal the gravity of the offer. 

His flat was lonely, devoid of love, furniture, connection. Also important was that it was expensive; if he were willing to extend the offer, it would save a good deal of money on Kanon's end.  _ I’ll think on it _ were the first words that came to his lips, but he swallowed them whole before they could be spoken. His offer was kind, and he wanted nothing more than to grasp hold of it and never let it go—the idea of being wanted, in somebody’s home no less, was enough to make his head spin. 

“If you’re offering it,” he said as he tried to hide his smile. “I’ll need time.”

Words buzzed around in the back of his head—did he truly mean it? Or was it just a slip of the tongue? Did he really think that much of him?

“Thanks. That means a lot. I’ve just…been worrying a lot about that lately. You can mull it over if you need to! I can repurpose a bed for you and clear out space. And if you have stuff you need to move, I can do that for you too.” As he slipped the sleeves of his outfit down to show off his muscles, his mind was lost in thought once more. If he was worrying about him, did that mean that his entire body perking up when they saw each other in the mornings wasn’t just because he was bringing him meat buns?

His face was gentle, but he was certain he’d spent no small amount of time considering it. Even if it was an offer that he wanted nothing more than to take up, it required thought first. Breaking a lease, moving, all of them demanded time. 

* * *

At the very least, time was something she had more than enough excess of. Cooking, after all, was largely busywork; grinding, chopping, shredding, all of it involved your hands, not your mind. In that time, you were free to ponder. And she did, not just for a day but for a week, mulling and turning the ideas over in her mind as she did with dough on the table. 

Ever since she was a kid, she knew she was alone in the world. Even for somebody who desperately wanted friendship, it was hard to bridge that gap—after her parents died and left her behind, she was always lonely. She was the kid who spoke not to real people, but to imaginary friends to fill that void; they guarded her heart from all that would seek it. As she aged, it only became worse; how would you tell a friend about those feelings about your body, or you styling yourself as a man one day, a woman the next? How would you know they would nod, and not look at you in scorn or disgust? Such a gap between adults was much larger than that of a lonely child’s. 

Because of that, very few had seen her heart in that manner. Fewer still were those who she had called friends. And yet this man, this dragon in front of her had tumbled into that, uncaring of any of that; he was the one who asked her to buy food, who invited her to stay with him when she didn’t have to. And now he was inviting her into his house without a second thought. 

Her brain started sputtering out all the things she’d need to do to move—negotiate renting, bring things over, etcetera—all things that weren’t worth it if it was just short term. Battler wanted her there for a while—not just until this trouble passed, but for far beyond that.

When that question was brought up, he’d paused; and then, slowly, had nodded. Slowly at first, but then firmer. “The place gets lonely at night,” he’d laughed. Her flat did, too; ever since he had spoken that offer, it had felt more and more empty. The silence wasn’t something she noticed until she was able to compare it to those chats with Battler; in comparison, that small room was lifeless. It was strange how long it took to finally notice that. 

Battler had broken into a wide grin when she asked if he was willing to have her stay over for a day. Just for a day. Nothing more. Just to see if that church was less lonely than that solitary, empty room. 

* * *

Somehow, that single question made her shift at work feel like it was endless, like she was moving in molasses as the world sped by outside. Even as she found him waiting outside once night fell, it didn’t feel real, as if she was trapped in a dream and just needed to wake up. It was only when he wrapped his hand tight around hers that it began to register that it was actually happening. 

Even as he led her to the forest, his body was quivering, the tail of his robes shifting from side to side from his tail swishing back and forth and back once again. As he shamelessly lifted his clothes and shed them with a thump onto the forest floor, she felt her face warm until it was boiling, but didn’t look away as he exposed his back as he packed them into a bag.

Her body wasn’t breathtaking like his was, with those scales delicately trailing up his spine like snow on a mountain. Her eyes traced that gentle transition from tip to tail as her fingers longed to trace it, too, just to see how it felt. To rub her hands from the nape of his neck to the tip of his tail, to feel him shiver beneath her touch. 

“Sorry about you having to see this. I’ll rip my clothes if I transform without stripping down first.” He spoke with the demeanor and tone of a man who was not at all sorry about showing himself off. Even so, as he turned around, he hid himself with his hands.

“So you’re not giving me a show,” she said with a wry smile.

“Are you saying you want one? Then stand back, stand back. I’ll make one just for you.” She had no idea how serious that comment was until he began to  _ change _ in the moonlight. It had the grace of a practiced dancer as he balanced himself first on two legs, then on four. 

His body was the size of a large horse, but if you were to count his wings, it was far larger. From all her glimpses of him in flight, he’d always felt massive. Regal, even, head raised and wings spread above her like a second crimson sky. Slowly, he folded his wings up and laid down to allow her to get clamber aboard.  _ Where _ ? Even if he had the size of a horse, it didn’t mean he had its body. The area behind the shoulderblades, where you would normally sit on a horse, was occupied by massive wing muscles. His neck had the girth that would make a mighty stallion weep, but it didn’t look strong enough to support her. Battler answered the question for her as he placed a massive clawed hand below the middle of his back as a stepstool. His body was warm. There was no convenient dip in his back like a horse, so there was no neutral place to rest. The only thing standing between her and the ground was trust that their bodies knew what to do.

He reared up to take flight, not quite putting all his weight onto his hind legs, but enough that she had to clamp down hard on the ridges on his back and the sides of his chest to keep from falling. Battler’s chest was rising and falling far more slowly than hers was as he began to beat his wings. Her eyes were shut tight, so she didn’t see the moment he left the ground, nor did she see the scenery below as she clung on for dear life. Instead of measuring time by the view below, she could only measure it in terms of touch; every beat of his wings as his muscles rippled under her, every breath they took. She only opened her eyes after hearing Battler’s voice, barely audible above the wind. 

“Are you okay?” Even if his neck couldn’t swivel like an owl, its contortion was uncanny. She couldn’t see the ground due to his wings thankfully blocking the view, but the thought still made her heart race. 

“I’m fine.” The blood drained from her face no doubt gave away her lie. Even though the glimpses of ground she got were passing far too quickly, Battler navigated it like he was born in the sky with his wings catching every puff of air and pulling them both skywards. She could only cling to him and pray that his body stiffening and changing direction meant the church was in sight. 

Inertia was not as kind to her as it was to Battler; his wings could soften the fall, but there was nothing to soften her body following the path it had a moment earlier and colliding hard with his back, hard enough that she had to roll off him and hit the ground, panting. Her heart beat through every cell of her body as she tried and failed to pull her burning, stinging legs into a standing position. The pain as she hit the ground barely registered compared to that fire and exhaustion engulfing her; she didn’t even notice Battler transform back until he was hovering over her.

She heard a “ _ sit down _ ” from him before she felt the cool wall of the church at her back and saw him rush past the wood doors into it. As the blood finally decided to start scorching back to her head and limbs, she lifted at the hem of her kosode and winced. Her ankles were rubbed raw from clinging for dear life to Battler, and every iota of flesh above them was inflamed, burning like hot coals under a fire. The pain sang along to the beating of her heart, to the point where she barely noticed Battler as he walked over to her, a jar of something in his hands.

“Hey, I’ve got balm.” Battler still being buck-naked didn’t help or hinder the situation, but it certainly made the image of him towering over her  _ interesting _ . There wasn’t an ounce of shame in his expression, only worry as he crouched down to dab some sort of stinging solution on her ankles. As she hissed, he only gave an apologetic smile. “Give it a moment. Sorry for not realizing that flying would hurt you like this.”

Unlike the heat of his back a couple minutes earlier, his hands were cool as they ran over her shins. The pain was bad, but it was bearable. “It’s fine.”

“Well, there’s just a bit more above that, and it would be hard to treat without removing your clothes.” The scales began appearing on his face, intensifying around his ears and neck as he tried to look anywhere but her. “Do you want to put on the rest yourself? It’s supposed to be rubbed in.”

Even with every inch of him exposed in the sun, there was nothing but worry in his expression as small scales began to ripple all over his body like light upon the waves. It was a beautiful sight, one that she wanted to watch for hours, from sunrise to sunset. 

That was right, wasn’t it? You couldn’t, shouldn’t run from the sun, even if it would brand your flesh a bright red. She had hidden part of her soul away from the world, but somehow that light had still managed to find it; and instead of running that part of her over the coals, his light had warmed it. 

There was nowhere to run now, but was there reason to run in the first place? 

“Swear an oath to me first.” As her hand traced his collarbone, scales appeared under her fingers. “Be honest with what you see. If you want to run away, don’t hesitate.”

He gave her a confused look, but he didn’t pause as he nodded. If anything, he looked rapt as she untied her kosode and let it fall into the grass.

She’d always daydreamed about this, but it had always ended in the other person’s lips curled in disgust. But here, she only felt vulnerable as she watched the scales swirl upon Battler’s skin. From the bob of this throat as he gulped to his eyes trying to look away to his hands fumbling for the salve, he seemed to shimmer in the sun like a mirage, as if this scene was a fantasy she would soon wake up from. Even the stinging as he rubbed it into the entirely wrong places didn’t hurt. 

She picked up his hand with its claws beginning to poke out from his skin and looked him in the eyes. “Are you disgusted with me?” Even if he could control his expressions, he couldn’t control the transformation shimmering on his skin; she didn’t know the emotion lying beneath it.

“Ouuuuuoh, no! No way! Th-this is just a completely normal male reaction to a girl stripping in front of me!!!” His tail, that massive, obvious heart on his sleeve was beating the ground like a drum as he tried his best to bury his entire head in his hands. “I don’t mind this! Just! I need some space, okay!” As he tore his fingers away from his face in order to point at hers, she could see fangs jutting out from his lips, lisping his words. “I’ll be back in a moment. Be sure to rub it in, okay!”

For all his dirty jokes, his reaction was surprisingly chaste as he sprinted into the church. The salve stung and smelled as it touched her skin, but the pain faded into memory a couple moments later. There was not doubt that it would need to be reapplied given the way it rubbed off so easily onto her fingers. 

Even faced with her body, scarred and ugly underneath her robes, he didn’t curl his lips in disgust—he just bolted. There was nothing under her clothes that anybody would be embarrassed about seeing, much less a dragon. It was sterile, devoid of anything a normal human would desire in a partner. 

Even so, wrapping her clothes over herself again felt like donning a suit of armor, hiding that venerability from the world once more. As she knocked on the door, she was met only with a panicked yell. 

“Come in! I’m….uh, putting on clothes! Wait here and I’ll show you to your room.”

“Take your time.” Even if the pain from riding Battler had mostly faded, it didn’t stop the feeling that the church felt more like a tomb with every breath. 

Eventually, Battler appeared in the doorway, clothed with scales fading by the second. “Sorry about that, it just caught me by surprise. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Her eyes were trained on the reflections on the floor, light darting from one color to the next, as she felt Battler sit down next to her.

“That’s good.” His voice was as tender as the touch on her shoulder. “I didn’t realize that I could hurt a human like that by riding me. Sorry. If you want to keep doing this, I can definitely try to get a sort of saddle or something.”

His voice, everything, was infuriating, pulling and digging at that long-festering wound. “Why are you so invested?”

“Huh?”

“You don’t need to hide your feelings. Why did you run from me? Why did your scales appear?“ As she touched his cheek, the scales appeared like magic under her fingers, even after Battler nudged that hand away from his skin. With his other hand, he scrubbed the back of his head like she would a dirty countertop stain.

“Aaaaaaa, it’s useless, useless!” The hand kept scratching and weaving through his hair, tangling his hair until it was no longer that recognizable field of red she was so familiar with, before clutching his head in his hands with a groan. “Scales sort of react to the blood in your face. So when you’re scared, it drains the blood, and they appear, but if you’re really working hard and exerting yourself, they also appear. Do you get it?”

She only cocked an eyebrow. His face quickly shifted to an awkward grin plastered over his face as his eyebrows followed her lead. Every inch of that expression was ridiculous as it silently begged her to just take that explanation, but her eyes refused to move from his face. No matter what emotion those scales conveyed, she wanted to know. His eyes kept pleading to leave the issue where it was, but she refused to tear her gaze from him until, finally, he sighed. 

“So, erm, scales, they also react to things like your cheeks getting red.” Even if it was impossible for somebody as big as him to ever seem small, his posture was trying its damndest to shrink from view. “Normally you’re only able to fully control stuff like that once you’re a ways into adulthood. It wasn’t finding any part of you gross or anything like that! You can’t just throw a scenario like that at a hot-blooded guy without expecting him to react! I mean, what were you expecting me to do, cup your chin and ask to rub lotion all over your crotch while I was naked? Even for a guy who was into that, that’s way too much, too fast!” He paused only to catch his breath before letting out a long, tired sigh.

“If you need me, I’ll be in my room, okay? If I could redo that last hour and not hurt you, I’d do that a thousand times over. If you need help or bandages, I can do that, too.” As he stood up to leave, she only saw a glimpse of expression, a soft one. 

Even after considering her aching legs, maybe staying here wouldn’t be so bad. 

* * *

  
With the passing of a couple weeks, Battler stumbled together a saddle for himself, and her injuries faded into memory. She has learned how to handle a knife to carve intricate calligraphy into woodblocks in her free time. 

Even with so little practice, lashing the saddle onto Battler had become muscle memory; put it between his shoulders, tighten it across his chest, hop aboard and tighten the restraints around her legs. The strange intermingling of trust and control is a feeling she has come to like for some reason that she can’t fully put into words. Those eyes as she pulled the ropes tight around his body were almost like pure liquid; if she wanted to hurt him like this, she would be able to, to reach just under his chin to the soft scales on his neck. 

Battler is graceful in the air, to the point where his movements on land are like a puppy learning to walk. She has learned to love the way he practically controls the air around him as the indisputable master of the sky. The fear that had been injected into her entire body the first time she flew has been replaced with awe, with the comfort of routine. Taking off and landing was as regular as buying meat buns for the two of them in the morning, listening to others talk of the news, and buying groceries for two people. 

The trouble boiled over when the body of the couple was found in the alley. Rushing to see it before it was carried away had only given her the buzzing of flies about the corpses, almost as if they were guarding it from the whispered rumors of the small mob of passersby. Even if there was nothing interesting about the corpses, she felt an invisible hand guiding her to their location. Just by the time, the placement, the bruises, they spoke volumes. If it had been her corpse rotting in the street, it would have whispered of those same things, and more. Things that she didn’t want repeated by anybody. 

There was nothing indicating the name of the attacker—no name written in dying blood, or anything that would be the key evidence in a novel. The only thing known with certainty was the time and location; early twilight in the square, when and where the only people wandering the streets were the market vendors. 

The crowd evaporated virtually overnight. The line for the meat bun vendor was a mere minute long until, finally, they left. Other vendors followed one by one, afraid; any one of their member could be a killer, after all. Only a couple remained; the chopsticks vendor, the pair selling fortunes, and a small handful more, Battler included. 

Her employers were even more insufferable than normal as the body count ramped up, with them shaking down her for details— _ Who was out? Did they seem afraid? _ —after every outing in lieu of actually poking their heads out the door. The only thing she got out of the encounters was the strengthened faith in their insufferability. Even as she had to work around her schedule to buy groceries in the morning now that the vendor she usually went to was closed, and trekking the entire way back, she received nothing but a barrage of pointless questions in response. They were so paranoid, scared of the idea of this invisible killer, that her hours got cut, too; fear of having her out past dusk, or perhaps more accurately, fearing they’d lose her and hire a potential assassin instead. If she got stabbed, at the very least, she could console herself that they would be hurting with her dying breaths. 

Even if her hours were cut, it didn’t stop her from aimlessly wandering about. Battler was there, after all; his mere presence lit up the darkened streets, even if she already knew their silence like the back of her hand. This was where she grew up, where she spent her childhood. It was also where everything was stolen from her in the span of a moment by a carriage, running far too fast in a far too crowded area. Parents, family, her body, gone in the wink of an eye. 

Even so, she’d always liked the city as dusk. Even if the silence no longer enveloped her like a familiar blanket, it had been replaced by conversation she had grown to love. If nobody else was on the streets, they had them all to themselves, free to speak about whatever floated through their minds. Since there was so little of the normal hustle and bustle, she could hear everything if she focused, from Battler’s feet padding behind her to the sound of every insect, to the footsteps approaching her from behind. As she spun around, she saw who the footsteps belonged to; a girl, hair tied back.

“Ah, hello! I was wondering if I could get directions? I’m unfortunately new to this city, and I can’t seem to find where I was staying.” It was hard to make out her face, but her voice was light and airy, not containing even an ounce of fear. Something about that was out of place, that voice you would expect from a kid, not somebody roaming at night. 

Battler tipped his head to the side as his eyebrows practically gouged a ravine across his forehead. “Wait, aren’t you a vendor?”

“Excuse me?” The voice floated over, but it had a sharp silver lining to it.

“You have the same scent as the lady who sells chopstick stuff.” How she was able to stay afloat was one of the market’s great mysteries, with the way she almost ambushed those who strayed too close to her wares. If she was the killer, at least the stolen wallets would answer that long-standing puzzle. If that woman had any scent that Sayo knew, it was the scent of rot; somebody she wanted to avoid whenever necessary. 

The woman, however, seemed to have a different opinion as she dramatically waved her sleeve to her face.“Scent?” The sniff she did was so loud that there was no way that it was for anything but show. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

“No. There’s no fooling my nose. What are you doing?” Her voice was as firm as his stance as he took a step closer to Sayo, clamping his hand down tight on her shoulder as her body tensed up. 

The woman gave an angry, syrupy-sweet huff as she crossed her arms. “Really? This soon?” She almost shot a glare to the night sky, to the heavens, as her face twisted into some ugly amalgamation of disgust, anger, and tears. “You can’t even create a scenario where I’m anything but a half-baked villain who gets found out the second she’s formally introduced to the protagonist? Really?” As the entire contents of her lungs whistled past her clenched teeth, the woman’s glare seemed to bore holes in both of them. “If this is the lose condition for me, then so be it! It was fun while it lasted!”

The statement was strange, but the glint of steel in her hand was anything but. Battler was lucky to only get a ripped sleeve as the knife tried to plunge into his scaled arm as he tackled her. The second they hit the ground he roared, some sound that was halfway between a scream and a primal bellow.

His words literally exploded in the sky, blanketing them in light. She could feel the heat scorch her skin as his flesh changed from pink to a deep crimson and his wings began to expand beneath the fabric covering his back. Despite feeling like she was baking in place, she didn’t step back, not even as she heard the footsteps of guards surround them. No, the one who backed down from the drawn swords was Battler. Those blades weren’t being pointed at the woman who had just attacked them—they were pointed at  _ him.  _ All he could do was back further and further against the wall until he finally tore his kosode off into the ground. 

The line of guards froze long enough for him to scramble up the wall and into the sky. she was only able to savor the sight for a moment before the a short, stout woman with a badge ordered her to her feet before beginning a barrage of questions. They were about everything; the dragon, herself, the woman lying in the street, and only stopped when the woman was satisfied. She had alibis galore; the woman only had a ripped dress heavy with the scent of dried blood. On the rare occasion that the woman began to broach the topic of Battler, her glassy eyes seemed to already know the answers before Sayo spoke them.

The questioning ended when the moon was high in the sky and with Sayo’s contact information deep inside the pockets of every guard. It would have been simplest to go back to her flat, or make some sort of excuse in order to sleep on her employer’s couch, but the sight of Battler’s panicked face filled her vision every time she tried to close her eyes. 

The gentle glow of the moon didn’t make the nettles grasping at her clothes any less painful. During the light of the day, the paths were illuminated enough that it was easy to avoid those patches of thorns, but such a thing was impossible in the dead of the night. Plants clung and grasped and pulled at her body, as if they were tearing her apart because of her choice to track down Battler. Even if it stung, that pain was barely a spark compared to the heat she had felt when Battler had roared. 

She had never seen him breathe fire before that moment. The flames had almost felt like rage and fear made solid as the heat sunk into the woman and Sayo alike. That was what she kept telling herself as she hiked through the woods; that she needed to be sure Battler was okay. It kept reverberating through her brain until, finally, the church came into view. He didn’t answer the door, nor was there any response to a loud, worried ‘ _ Battler?’ _

At night, the light of the moon only pierced the glass enough that she could make out fuzzy shapes, but she could not spot the unmistakable girth of a dragon. Normally, there were candles and lanterns dotted about, lit not for his sharp eyes but for Sayo. Without those points of light, it felt even emptier than it was. He was not in his room, nor was he in the pews overflowing with books. It was only when she opened the door to the printing press that she saw him, back arched against the wall like a cornered stray. 

“You’re—you’re okay,” he stammered. She could barely see him step forwards in the darkness, but she could feel his breath as his nose carefully sniffed at her. 

“I’m fine. What about you?” She held out a hand in the general outline of his head and touched the scales on his nose. He seemed fine at first glance, but everything about the scene said otherwise. 

“I wasn’t hurt.” Hidden in the assertion was a small crack in his voice. When the guards laid eyes upon him, they saw a monster, after all. It was a feeling she knew all too well. She couldn’t change the past, couldn’t do anything but stand there. Gently, she stroked the familiar ridges of his muzzle. Almost immediately, he lowered his head to allow her to touch more of him. She felt his body melt under her touch, scales to skin, fangs to teeth, claws to hands, until she had him in a corner. 

He kept looking at the floor, as if the words kept repeating in his head.  _ monster _ . 

She knew the feeling. 

“You said you don’t care about my body, right? I don’t care about yours, either.” She hoped her gaze was fierce as she brushed his hips. Compared to her body, his was beautiful. Even in this darkened room, it gleamed like the sun. 

“I—wasn’t thinking about that.” 

“Huh?”

“I ran when you were in trouble.”

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead.”

“It just…feels like something my dad would do. It makes me worry about what would happen if I took a human. I don’t want to end up hurting them.”

She would be lying if she said she wasn’t unfamiliar with the feeling--telling somebody once they were in a relationship would mean hurting them. Telling them upfront would be like suicide. Because of that, she closed herself off to the love she yearned for. “You’d be a wonderful partner.”

“I can’t even keep you from getting hurt, though.”

“I’ve been hurting for years. It’s fine.” It was a terrible thing to get used to, but those sorts of thoughts trailed her for years. That her body was unloveable, that she would never find that love she had been wishing for her entire life. 

“What if I wanted to help?” he asks, as if he didn’t realize his mere friendship, him not caring about anything about her but herself, wasn’t already more help than any human had shown her. 

“I’m fine. I don’t need anybody’s pity.” Pitying, seeing her body as something to be looked down upon as if it was a misfortune, did nothing compared to when Battler had glimpsed it and decided that it didn’t matter. It was that, and nothing else, that made those thoughts go away.

“Nothing I’m showing you was born from pity.” She felt him grip her shoulders, his hands as firm as his words. “Nothing.”

“Do you really?” Even if every bit of her knew what he was saying was true, some hidden part of herself couldn’t believe it.

“I’m not lying! If I ran away from a situation and you got hurt or died because of that…I don’t know what I’d do.” A sound emanated from his throat, halfway between a sigh and a choked sob. “I’m not my dad, or my grandad. I don’t want people I love to get hurt because I screwed up.”

“Love.” As she spoke that one, single, powerful word, his body stiffened under her fingers. His scales had never fully disappeared under her touch, but in place of that, she could feel his body heating, burning up as she spoke. 

“Yeah. Love.” The words were casual, but everything else about his body, from his tail tapping against the wall, the heat, that slight stammering in his voice, was screaming that it wasn’t. “I, I like you, and think about you a lot. But, if you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine!” He sighed as his body began to literally shrink into the shadows. “I already told you, but I’m used to that sort of thing when it comes to falling in love with humans, so it won’t make any difference to me if you don’t like me back.”

Sayo had done the same thing in the past—trying to downplay that affection, hide it, in case she wasn’t loved back. As if she was expecting to be rejected, as if she didn’t yearn for love like she yearned for air. “You said you wanted somebody to rub your shoulders at the end of the day, or wash you down. be honest. Do you really think I fit that, with the way I am? If I were to kiss you, would you be happy?”

There was a pause. “I. If you can’t have kids, that means I’m able to love you but not hurt you, right? That’s not a bad thing. Even just having you here to talk to makes me happy, so if I were to be with you…that would make me really happy!”

That was a statement made with a lot of stammering; if it was made in the light of day, his face would no doubt be flushed a deep red. 

“I see.” Even without meaning to, she felt the corners of her lips yanked up by his words. But as for the hands wrapping around her back? She meant for them to be there, just as she meant for her lips to press against his as they changed from a fanged muzzle to human lips. She didn’t care that his pointed teeth cut her face in his excitement, or that his grip was practically crushing the air from her lungs. What was important was that he was here, and he was warm.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a co-writer for this fic, but her writing wasn't up to my standards and everything she wrote got edited out. Here is an unabridged transcript of everything she typed out for me that was removed:
> 
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> 
> `
> 
> ;’’’’’a.qz  
>  vb 
> 
> gfv`
> 
> She does not have an AO3, but i can give her a scratch behind the ears if you enjoyed her additions!


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